Saturday, March 20, 2010

Cbug had so much fun at his second birthday party, from the moment he woke up until the last of the guests were gone. He must have said "My paaar-taaaaay, my paaaar-taaaay" about 1000 times that day. So much fun!

<---- the invitation

I made pudding cake and chocolate chocolate cake as our "dirt" for the construction party.

And yes, I caught the spelling mishap before the party!

Cbug loved the cake. He also loved the party favor trucks (which initially had raisinettes in them as dirt). Everyone especially loved rolling them across the huge open church floor. Who needs a playscape?

And the birthday boy's siblings had lots of fun, too...

Just the fact that this is the best picture I got of all of the children says a lot about the party. Sweet, fun, organized,friendly CHAOS.

Happy Birthday (one more time), Mr. Cbug!

Hope you feel celebrated because we sure do cherish the day you were added to our lives!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Since RRL was out of town when the time changed we decided to embrace the extra hour of sunlight and invite some friends to join us for a picnic. I love having friends that I can invite to an impromptu "bring-your-own-food/please-help-me-chase-my-kids" sort of picnic.

I also love that my children have such wonderfully sweet (and adorable) friends!

and they loved that Mr. James has such a cool airplane!

I love enjoying these sweet baby girl smiles.

and they love laughing at their Mommas and crawling away.

I'm so glad we decided to celebrate Daylight Savings Time for the extra hour of sunshine, instead of bemoaning the lost hour of sleep.

(Although there may or may not have been some moaning the next morning)

Hope you are finding lots of ways to enjoy the sunshine with people you love, too!

Monday, March 8, 2010

When Monday also happens to be RRL's bday, it makes perfect sense that our MMM project would be a surprise for him. I wanted to make him dessert, but we were having cake the next night with his family to celebrate, so I had to get creative. He LOVES Dr Pepper so I was thrilled when I cam across this recipe for Dr Pepper no bake cookies. The recipe even indicated that it was kid friendly so it was perfect for us (so I thought).

The recipe definitely was kid friendly during the first several steps. I mean, of course it was, it involved Nilla Wafers.

And even involved crushing them and dumping them (two of the boys favorite activites in any arena)

And the recipe was shaping up to be a tasty one, too. Add some Dr. Pepper and a whole-lotta butter (yes, that is an official measurement)

This is where it got tricky. After you mix all of those fun ingredients, you are supposed to form small balls of dough, dip them in icing and then roll them in nuts. I do not have many pictures of these steps because...well, this was NOT kid friendly...or mom friendly for that matter. IT WAS A HUGE MESS. Don't know if my icing was too runny, maybe should have actually used nuts (instead of substituting mini-chocolate-chips), or the dough should have chilled to be a little more firm. Whatever the reason, the finished product tasted great, but looked anything but appetizing.

Anyone else have a fun Dr. Pepper recipe?

Please keep in mind that if you tell me it is kid friendly and I can't even do it myself, I might cry.